Step IV: Speed Drills

It is time now to introduce you to the drills which will put speed into your reading. You have learned about phrase reading and why it automatically increases your speed. I have told you that you cannot reach speed and comprehension unless you give full concentration while you read.

Just how fast should you be able to read? What about these claims of people who read 5,000 and 10,000 words a minute? All I can say is that I do not know any such geniuses, though they may exist. I don't know anyone personally who breaks the four-minute mile, though it has been done by a number of outstanding runners.

Unless you have exceptional ability to begin with, I should say your target would be 600 to 800 words a minute. If you can consistently read 800 words a minute on average narrative material, that's 48,000 words an hour, which means that you could read a book of 100,000 words — a good-sized novel or biography — in an evening.

Now let's concentrate on the drills which will increase your speed. These have principally to do with learning to move through material with the phrase-reading technique I have explained, stretching your speed constantly beyond the rate at which you easily read.

I often say that your newspaper is one of the best tools for the practice of Modern Reading. This is what I mean: Because of its narrow columns you can move down the lines of a newspaper easily and with few fixations per line. To stretch yourself, draw a line down the middle of any newspaper column. Focus on the line and try to stretch your span of recognition as far as you can on both sides to take in the words as your eyes slide rapidly down the center of the column. You won't be able to do this successfully at first. But practice the drill. As you work you will find you anticipate words and meanings, as I explained in Chapter Two. Focusing on the center line and going down the column, you will be able to comprehend more and more until you are reading almost every­thing in the column.

For practice, try the technique with columns of phrases. The drill with the columns below is exactly the same as that you were shown in Chapter Two, with the exception of the fact that these phrases are unrelated to each other. Use the cut-out portion of your Pacing Card.

out of town flying high carpet tack many reasons best results good weather market value heavy smoker the white cat five-day week

psychological moment local representative crude-oil production of all requirements accidents do happen profit-sharing plans Republican candidate at an annual rate of increasing broadness government operation

for one reason or another Associated Press dispatch synthetic textile fabrics a new brand of cigarettes Republic of South Africa I shall be most grateful civil-service examination the verdict was "guilty" political representative at the regular list price

Pace Your Practice Reading

Now I want you to begin stretching your reading speed. Take the Pacing Card which came with this book (any card will do here) and, using your newspaper, place the card so that it is just above any column. Now, as you did in columnar reading, focus your eyes on the middle of the column. Draw the card down in an even motion — faster than you can com­fortably read — and try to get every fact in the story. Do not go back during this exercise or let your eyes regress. If you think you missed something, don't worry about it. Keep going. Bring the card to the end of the column and now test yourself by asking questions. Try to restate the principal facts, the main ideas. Then spend as much time as you want going back through the column to find how much you missed.
 
This kind of drill is going to concern you for quite some time, if you are to become a really rapid reader. You are to read newspapers, magazines, books — using the card or a piece of paper to pace yourself. You must draw it down evenly over the lines of type, catch the meaning in a line as the card un­covers it and then move your eyes down to the next. You must draw the card down in even rhythm. But you will soon find that you are speeding the rhythm with practice. This is quite an exciting discovery. Time yourself each day on different sorts of material — using the mathematical formula in the Introduction or the chart to calculate your reading time per minute — and see how your speed grows.

Flash Reading

One technique of Modern Reading is to increase the speed of your recognition of word images and numbers. In classrooms students receive extensive practice with what is called a "phrase-flasher". This is an individual aid which exposes phrases or digits for a predetermined length of time and then wipes them out something like a flashing sign. The purpose of this kind of training is to quicken perception so that your eyes fixate instantly on several words or numbers at one time. With phrases, your mind receives word images so rapidly that ideas build one from another and there is no lag during which thoughts can wander.

You can approximate this drill by using the Pacing Card. Ask someone to make you two or three columnar lists. Start with short words and work up to phrases about fourteen letters in length. The drill is simply to place the card above the first phrase, draw it down and back as quickly as you can. In the brief exposure you read the phrase. Then bring the card down to the top of the next phrase and repeat the process.

Digit drill is just like phrase drill in mechanics. Drill with digits is useful to sharpen recognition of details because one number has no relation to another. Start working with three-digit numbers, advance to four and keep stepping up the num­ber of digits until you reach eight. Columns of numbers in the telephone book provide excellent practice.

234        4961             87142              3498781                 9-2226
521        7387             13 65              8143223                 3-3814
517        3718             27721              563 819                4-6259
452        6942             30975              7201287                 7-6536
908        1963             717844            94784323               5-0275
704        24712           426791            46417419               2-3677
127        5982            176791            20254917                1-0041
839        41632           940918            64784934                 3-9818

Be as tough as you can when you flash the card. Pull it down and up with the shortest possible exposure. You are the only person who is going to know your score, so don't try to cheat.  This is excellent training in faster reading.

Your target here is to decrease the amount of time it takes your eyes to photograph an image and transmit it to your mind. Later on I shall be talking about the importance of vocabulary in the rapid-reading score. I'll preview that here only to say that words — like faces — are images. Their conformation tends to make recognition easy. The bigger the vocabulary, the quicker you recognize words. The more words you know, the faster you can read. Particularly in flash reading, a small vocabulary is a heavy handicap to reading speed

Space Heading

In rapid reading one aid is to focus the eyes just above the words rather than on the line itself. This gives a sort of perspective which tends to make the words stand out in phrases. You absorb and photograph them more quickly. It is the same principle sailors are taught in looking for another ship or a landmark at night. Focus just to one side of where you think the object must be.  Then you see it quickly.

Pacing in Regular Heading

After you have worked with the newspaper a while and practiced the other exercises, I want you to spend an evening reading a fairly light novel. It should be something that isn't difficult. Use a Pacing Card. Place it so that it just covers the top line on each page. Draw it down in even rhythm over the lines, always a little faster than you can comfortably read. Try to feel the pace. Then put aside the card and go on reading in the same rhythm. Do not, under any circumstances, let your eyes regress. If you miss something, forget it. Just read and read and read — as fast as you can.

If you have been working steadily on the techniques I have shown you, you will finish the book in an evening. You may have spent a week on a novel before but when you go to bed tonight you have turned the last page. This is the first triumph and dividend I can offer you from your Modern Read­ing course. You have read an entire book in a single evening! Well, get a stack of paperbacks. You will need them, because one of the requirements of Modern Reading is to keep yourself alert by constant practice. Whenever you have a free evening at home, pick up the next paperback. Use the card to pace yourself down the first 20 pages. Then cut loose and con­tinue reading at speed. Concentrate! Read in phrases! Use all the skills! Now you know that faster reading isn't just a theory.  It works for you!

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